A Personal Code of Conduct

By

Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim

March 21, 2012 4:20 p.m. ET

New York

Q. What is the difference between a symphony orchestra and a freight train?

A. The freight train needs a conductor.

It's an old joke and mild compared to other conductor jokes that make the rounds of professional orchestras: most, like lawyer jokes, imagine a violent end for their subject. But if the joke has lost its subversive bite, it is thanks in part to an ensemble that, 40 years ago, took the inherent question and turned it around to ask how a conductorless orchestra could work—and sound.

The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra was founded in the spring of 1972 by cellist Julian Fifer and a group of musicians frustrated with the professional options available to them. Over the decades, it has grown into one of the best-loved ensembles on the scene, all the while pushing the limits of what is feasible without a conductor. To date that includes Beethoven symphonies, Brahms concerti, rhythmically intricate works by Modernist composers, an ever-expanding catalog of newly commissioned works—and even a full-length Rossini opera.

On Saturday, the Orpheus takes to Carnegie Hall with a program of Americana that pairs the mandolin concerto of bluegrass virtuoso Chris Thile with Aaron Copland's Appalachian Spring; this past Sunday, composer-in-residence Gabriel Kahane curated a related concert with a contemporary spin at the more intimate Galapagos Art Space in Brooklyn, N.Y.

American Originals

Orpheus Chamber Orchestra

Carnegie Hall

March 24

Sitting at a table on a busy mezzanine inside of Manhattan's Riverside Church, one of the orchestra's rehearsal spaces, violinist Ronnie Bauch and cellist Melissa Meell look back at the evolution of the Orpheus Method, the egalitarian organizational principle at the heart of the orchestra. Mr. Bauch has been a member of the orchestra since 1975; Ms. Meell joined 20 years ago. In interview, both take turns finishing each other's thoughts.

In the early years, the rotating position of concertmaster was democratically elected for each concert, leading to intense lobbying. "People would call you up and say, 'I really want to lead that Haydn symphony; I think I'd do a great job,'" Mr. Bauch recalls, "and then everybody would vote." But "that's not really feasible," he adds. "It was too time-consuming," Ms. Meell says.

Today, an elected executive committee of players assigns the position for each work; the concertmaster then chooses the leaders and co-principals of the other sections, who form the so-called core. At core rehearsals, the broad themes of interpretation, tempo and phrasing are hashed out ahead of tutti rehearsals, in which each player is encouraged to speak up. Everyone is expected to know the entire score. During rehearsals, players take turns walking out into the auditorium to check for sound and balance and then report back to the ensemble.

The unique work process places unusual demands on the players: String players, who may need to cue entrances for other sections, learn to take into account the small time delay in the sound production of wind instruments; wind players join in on discussions of bowing patterns. Ms. Meell says the ensemble requires "an interesting counterbalance of someone who can work well with others but who can also stand their ground."

All this translates into live performances that are electric with accumulated concentration. "You're so clued in to people around you, to people across the stage," Mr. Bauch says. "The listening is intense because you're always trying to find out what might happen," Ms. Meell explains. "They might throw you a curveball." Good curveballs, she says, are a particularly beautiful solo or a section leader taking a lot of time over a particular phrase—moments where everybody is holding their breath." More challenging have been in-concert mishaps with soloists who inadvertently missed a measure or even a whole page.

"We've played a Mozart piano concerto where the soloist literally skipped the entire development," Mr. Bauch says. "I looked around and saw some raised eyebrows, and then the entire orchestra—every last person—jumped to where he was and finished the piece. The pianist wasn't even aware of it."

Mr. Kahane, a composer with one foot in the world of pop music, says he was struck by the orchestra's exceptional sense of rhythm. "There is occasional laziness in American orchestral playing, because people are just waiting for the downbeat," he says. "With the Orpheus the rhythmic values are really profound, because they take responsibility for the moment-to-moment music-making."

Pianist Richard Goode, who has regularly played with the Orpheus, says he enjoys the direct communication he has with all sections of the orchestra. "When I first heard about the Orpheus, I had already suffered under certain conductors and could understand that people would want to get out from under that and determine the music they make. As a soloist, I have sometimes found it amazing that persons who sit in an orchestra have to follow the tempo, phrasing and conception of this one guy."

For the orchestra's members, Mr. Bauch says, playing without a conductor "was never a gimmick. It was always about making the best possible music."

He remembers the first time the orchestra performed the Eroica Symphony, with a pared-down ensemble similar in size to the one Beethoven used. "It was eye-opening," he says. "Without that giant carpet of strings in front, the wind writing, which was so revelatory, came to the fore." Ms. Meell says she experienced a similar sense of revelation in a performance of Mahler's Fourth. Played like chamber music by an ensemble of equals, she says, even the great warhorses of the Romantic repertoire take on a new character: "It becomes personal."

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